Ai-Da’s portrait of King Charles III

ANNOUNCEMENT

Last week at the United Nations, Ai-Da unveiled a portrait of King Charles III, making history.

Here is the Sky TV News link describing it.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-king-and-ai-a-humanoid-robot-has-painted-a-picture-of-charles-how-did-it-do-13397522

Here’s a video of the unveiling by The India Times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K52qp3wsoW8

How Ai-Da made the portrait:

Ai-Da saw multiple images of King Charles. She did a number of sketches and preparatory paintings using her AI algorithms and robotic arm.

She chose a particular image of King Charles, taken during diplomatic duty. Ai-Da then analysed it with her computer vision, and AI algorithms. This was then built up in multiple different layers to make the image. This included looking at different aspects of tone, texture, abstraction etc.. It was then enlarged to make the final 3D textured image. Ai-Da completed the painting with finishing brush strokes.

Like many contemporary artists, Ai-Da has studio assistants to help at points in the artwork process, mixing paints, moving the canvas etc. however the creative interpretation of the image is by Ai-Da (see Professor Boden’s definition)

The artwork is mixed media - digital processes, AI algorithms, 3D printing, and acrylic paint.